Sunday, May 31, 2009

Our Lady of Hope

Some time earlier, during the Caledon ghost quest, I believe, I visited Caer Firnas to find a new addition: Our Lady of Hope Teaching Hospital and Historical Society.

The hospital entrance

The hospital is a fascinating build, thanks to the talents of Duke and Duchess Caer Firnas, Vivito Volare and Fogwoman Gray, evoking a (thankfully sanitized) version of a Victorian-era hospital.

A view of the medical library

The hospital is divided into a number of smaller rooms: waiting area, medical library, patient ward, a long corridor, and operating theater.

The patient ward

In addition to the three-dimensional representations of a Victorian hospital, and the photographs gracing the walls, the "teaching" aspect of the hospital becomes evident in the last room, the operating theater.

The operating theater. Ether, anyone?

Each of the five green circles surrounding the hapless patient on his gurney provides transportation to one of the innermost workings of the human body, each of which contains a form of cancer. (Miss Gray has made no secret of the fact that her typist is a nurse.)

I visit the gastrointestinal tract

One can travel through an intestine, a rectum, a breast, a lung, and a vaginal canal to see how cancerous growths may affect each.

I visit a breast

Of course, as I am a devoted hypochondriac, upon seeing this, I promptly experienced unusual pains in about three-quarters of my body.

I visit a lung

Nonetheless, the exhibit provides an eye-opening, forthright introduction to some of the types of abnormal cells that may form in the body. The hospital and its contents are unique to Caledon, if not the entire grid, and give useful insight into what a cancerous growth may look like. If nothing else, the visitor leaves thankful that she lives in a time of more advanced medicine.

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